1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a strengthening support device for buildings and civil engineering structures, and more particularly to a bracing device that has at least one viewing hole to enable an inspector to see an interior structure of the bracing device conveniently to ensure the structural safety of a building or a civil engineering structure.
2. Description of Related Art
To strengthen the structural toughness and the supporting strength of a large building and civil engineering structure, conventional bracing devices are used between the beams and the pillars of the building to provide a proper axial resilience, to strengthen the structure and to eliminate the vibration energy and other performance. The applicant had previously proposed a bracing device for a structure such as the Taiwan Patent Numbers: M321445, M345092, M345836 and M389142. In the above-mentioned patents, the bracing device has a supporting element and a restraining element. The restraining element is mounted around the supporting element to provide a supporting and restraining effect to the supporting element, and this can prevent the supporting element from buckling under pressure.
The applicant has previously proposed various types of bracing device that can meet the different supporting needs of buildings. When the buildings are deformed by an earthquake or a strong wind, the conventional bracing devices can be used to against the lateral forces that are produced by the earthquake or the strong wind to reduce the shaking conditions of buildings. However, after the earthquake or the strong wind, an inspector cannot inspect the damage of the supporting element due to the restraining element is fully mounted around the supporting element. Then, the inspector needs to dismantle the restraining element from the supporting element during an inspecting process of the structural safety of the building. Particularly, the cost of re-constructing the restraining element is high, the re-construction of the restraining element is difficult and this will become a major limit when inspecting the structural safety of the building. Consequently, the inspector only can skip the inspection of the supporting element of the conventional bracing device and this will generate hidden worries of the structural safety of the building.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide a bracing device to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.